So I made a little split decision purchase the other day.
These are the Deathrippers from Warmachine. These were the last in stock on Amazon, and looking at most hobby shop sites I frequent, the last in stock I can find.
These little guys stole my heart the second I learned about them, and so as soon as I heard that they were no longer in print and were slowly being phased out, I immediately placed the Amazon order.
This is the first time I've ever acquired some Warmachine minis, so here's my little review of them!
These endangered bone doggos are great design wise, and I'm real sad that they aren't sticking around. I love the meshing of skulls and mechanical components in a subtle way. They aren't death guard's big biological nightmares, but they also aren't just regular ol' robots. I love the design choice to make them two-legged walker things instead of just another ol' four-legged dog thing, very creative! The porting on the necks is interesting, I'm unsure if the implications are that bones are magical and are causing it to overheat? Or maybe the machine runs hot and they want to keep the bones from getting melty? I dunno, but it's certainly neat looking!
4.5/5 on design!
Sadly, while the design is great, the mini quality leaves a little to be desired. First, the minis came in a little baggy instead of on sprues, which I have mixed feelings about.
On one hand, it's certainly convenient not to have to de-sprue the mini bits. On the other hand, these had some awful connection scars.
This was after I had scraped at them with a hobby knife for a bit, too. I'm likely going to have to pick up something to sand them down a bit. While I'm certainly calling the kettle here, I must say that these weren't taken off the sprues very well at all.
On top of that, the leg pins were slightly larger than the leg holes, which meant I had to do a mix of attempting to shove them in, scraping down the sides with my hobby knife and then rinse and repeat until they cooperated.
The instructions didn't help too much either. Figuring out how the top of the skull was supposed to fit onto the bottom took me a bit of pondering. The instructions just kinda had lines pointing to where they go.
Turns out you're supposed to attach the skull under a little overhang on the bottom jaw. The top piece has a rounded bit that fits in with a divot on the bottom piece, which... isn't what the instructions say to do.
Overall, I didn't have very much fun assembling these. Usually, (when I'm dealing with plastic, not resin minis) mini assembly is challenging, but at least a little fun. These were just a hassle.
Assembly and mini quality: 2/5
Despite that, I'm still planning on basing these and giving them the display quality treatment. In the off chance these end up becoming a collectors item or something (unlikely), it'd be nice to have some high-quality painted versions to show off/potentially sell.
Heck, since they're going out of print, I might look into making some molds of them to recast or see if I can get a really high-quality scan of them to 3D print myself! It'd be nice to not have these little goofballs fade into obscurity, I think they're my favorite thing to come out of Warmachine, if not the best thing to come out of Warmachine.
